Ad targeting and retargeting is driving audience segmenting  and advertisers need to react to changes in the market, according to a report in Social Times. Despite a focus on data, marketers are still getting confused. Data from Yahoo, brand strategists at Audience Theory and market research firm Ipsos indicates that existing targeting strategies aren't resonating with current audiences. Millennials appear to be the most affected, with 37% of respondents to a study saying they would click on ads, and 34% more likely to purchase products from brands that target them. And 25% actually said they felt that advertisers …

AdExchanger reports that Google, Facebook and Twitter are the dominant platforms for political candidates, and each has a line item on every campaign's media plan. In 2015, Borrell Research projected $1.1 billion would be spent by political buyers on digital media this year, but analysts and political operatives at the time said the majority of political budgets would go to the media companies considered to be safe bets by campaigns and super PACs. The report said that "ad buying in the political arena is different from what independent media and technology sellers are accustomed to," said JC Medici, Rocket Fuel’s …

Google is planning to launch a new set of data tools for marketers that will compete with marketing cloud solutions, the Wall Street Journal reports. Google Analytics 360 Suite will compete with similar analytics tools offered by Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce and IBM. The Google package has six different tools, some of which are new, and some of which are updated and repackaged versions of existing products. Google hopes to provide marketers with a centralized platform to track and store information about customers and their behaviors. "For example, the tools might help an online retailer understand why a customer initially visited …

Integral Ad Science’s new partnership with MediaMath, announced on March 10, enables advertisers to choose specific levels of video viewability for their campaigns. It's also one of several initiatives based on targeting at the placement level that will be replicated by others. Instead of doing video targeting at the domain level, Integral does it at the placement level, Kevin Lenane, GM of Video at Integral, tells Beet.TV. This is to avoid the pitfalls inherent in rating domains and labeling them “white” or “black.” “There’s always a chance with the white list/black list scenario that you don’t hit your target,” …

Forbes' Lewis DVorkin, appearing on a panel at SxSW, had some tasty morsels to share. To rewind, the publication reports that two weeks ago, it introduced a survey to 2% of its ad blocking audience. If readers answered a few questions, they got to access Forbescontent even with their blocking software switched on. The findings? Thirty-six percent said they’re simply too annoying. Malware came in second place and privacy third, despite the digerati’s emotions around both. DVorkin reported: "Nearly 70% of visitors who answered the whitelist question don’t know how to do it. I’m not surprised, since consumers often …

Advertising Age reports that lawyers for JWT Chief Communications Officer Erin Johnson "say they have an email exchange documenting their client's attempts to alert the agency to complaints about Chairman-CEO Gustavo Martinez". Johnson filed a discrimination lawsuit last week against the WPP agency and its chief executive, claiming among other things that Mr. Martinez made numerous "racist and sexist slurs." The 28-page lawsuit claims that despite Ms. Johnson alerting other people to the issues and having tape of at least one incident, nothing was done by the agency. "Lawyers for Ms. Johnson say they have an email exchange from Ms. …

Adblock Plus users are getting an error message on YouTube in lieu of ads. The message shows up only for the duration of the pre-roll, and only certain users of Google Chrome have been affected as of now, VentureBeat reported. Adblock Plus head of operations Ben Williams told VentureBeat that the company is looking into the problem, which seems to be on YouTube's side at this point. “Let’s hope for a speedy solution," Williams said. In the meantime, Adblock Plus forums and Reddit users have found a temporary solution for those who want to watch YouTube videos without ads.

BuzzFeed launched a new ad format called Swarm at South by Southwest Interactive on Saturday. BuzzFeed's CMO Frank Cooper announced the new product during a keynote, saying, "Instead of forcing all your traffic and spending all your resources to drive people to your owned and operated platforms, why not go to where they are." Swarm will let advertisers run campaigns across all of BuzzFeed's online and mobile properties, as well as six of its social platforms: Facebook, Snapchat Discover, YouTube, Vine, Instagram and Tumblr. NBCUniversal tested the new ad format with the movie "Sisters." Cooper said the ad format is best used for "when you want …

At the South By Southwest Interactive News conference, The New York Times CEO Mark Thompson told Ad Age that its newest acquisition, social platform HelloSociety, is an important piece in the company's branded content business. Thompson said the newspaper is "extremely choosy" about acquisitions, and this is the first one in his three and a half years as chief. "Innovative and non-standard forms of distribution" and effective use of social media are both client priorities, he said.

Rubicon Project, which recently announced a partnership with Cadreon, has another partnership announcement: Mediaocean. The pair teamed up to offer a global automated guaranteed solution for its direct advertising business aiming to scale automation efforts for the direct buying sector. Ryan Polley, SVP and head of product management at Rubicon Project, said the deal "directly gives us a massive amount of media dollars going to our sellers that we didn't see before because those dollars are already flowing through the Mediaocean system."